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Rabu, 14 April 2010

List::Util, List::MoreUtils, Util::Any (Unfortunately, Part 1)

The dichotomy of List::Util and List::MoreUtils is one of the unfortunate annoyances in Perl. One is without s, one is with s. Which function belongs to which? And no, you can't simply say, "f*ck it, just import everything!" as List::Util doesn't provide the usual ":all" import tag (RT).

Some thoughts (from someone who is largely ignorant on the history of both modules), all IMO:

1. Since List::Util is basically a convenient library, convenience should've been its main design goal. It should've been inclusive enough. The decision to deny the inclusion of any(), all(), none() just because they are too "trivial" to implement in one line of Perl was a bit strange, since max(), min(), etc are also trivial to implement in Perl.

2. List::MoreUtils should've included all the functionalities of List::Util, so one can use it *instead of* List::Util.

But hey, what happened happened.

Btw, we also have Perl 6's junction taking the "all", "any", "none" keyword.

And we'll see whether solutions like Util::Any will catch on, as it's another syntax to learn, another module to download and install. As with many annoyances, they are actually not that big of a deal. One can just spend a few seconds looking up the documentation to find the functions he/she wants, and after about tens of uses should remember which ones are in which.

2 komentar:

I myself have been annoyed at the List::Util / List::MoreUtils split. I've found the authors of both quite averse to considering adding any new functions. So much so that I got fed up and just released yet another dist to contain them.